Praise be our Goddess Madoka, for She died for our sins and gave us hope

So um, basically the first time for the series that a cliffhanger ending didn’t lead to an anti-climatic lead-in the next episode.

In many ways, this was a pretty disappointing episode. Otonashi’s death memories are fleshed out more and as much as they -tried- to make it touching/sad/whatever, it just felt like a really contrived ad for organ donation at the end of it. I mean… if he died immediately in the train crash, I’d be more understanding of his feelings of regret, but he and a bunch of survivors actually managed to live for a week, trapped in the tunnel, IN MODERN JAPAN? Kinda ridiculous.

Sign up to be a donor today! Make your life a meaningful one!

If you think about it, would it be possible for the authorities, especially the TRAIN COMPANIES in Japan to not notice a train missing for so long and then taking nearly a week to excavate them out? Sounds really unlikely in Japan. Not to mention the awesome timing of the rescuers to reach them right after Otonashi breathed his last? Hurr.

Heck, they even hinted that he didn’t even know exactly what his little sister’s sickness was. And then he only realized with his dying breath in the tunnel? Man, felt utterly contrived.

Oh well, it was made up by Kanade acting really cute this week. She is totally an awkward person, to have escalated the conflict between herself and the SSS members for the purpose of letting them have an enjoyable youth.

Oh man, you had us all worried!

D’aaaawwww

And now, Otonashi’s turned from the pretentious goody-two-shoes to the two-faced betrayer, hell-bent on making everyone disappear. Feels really awkward in terms of setting a direction to the show, but oh well…. :(

47 Comments

Beruchi Said,

Well, I guess there was a greater upraor cause to an earthquake or something (since both ends collapsed)
Kanade said, that it wasn’t Otonashis true regret, so he didn’t disappear. So it could be, he survived even longer.

babohtea Said,

idk, i liked that episode. It is kind of contrived, but this isn’t exactly meant to be realistic…

If anything, I felt like the previous episodes were more contrived. If this was the direction the show was going to take, a lot of the past plot was actually really useless, or could have been done much better. Kind of feels like they’re tugging you around randomly.

Maximilian Said,

Yeeees, I’m sure he didn’t know his sister’s, the only purpose in his life up until that point, illness, and he realized that at that point. Yes, that definitely must be…

/sarcasm mode off

Plus, you do realize that he died knowing he didn’t help anyone there, full of regrets. Don’t know about you, but I believe it would be more regretful watching people for a week with almost no rations; and at the end realize his hopelessness than just up and dying in a train accident.

Mariejoanna Said,

actually they (the saviors) knew about it but it takes much time to do it. and when you read the news (= reality) some of them even need more than a week to save the trapped people, in modern times, in a non-remote place. btw if otonashi was dying by famine or something like that, means his brain is not smashed, how did he get amnesia? on a side note, if that one guy didn’t steal the water, otonashi would survive.

I find it hard believe that in a modern country like Japan, it took nearly a week to clear a landslide blocking a train tunnel and they couldn’t even drill a small hole inside to confirm survivors and try to help them first.

Also, Otonashi was in pretty terrible condition, he had internal bleeding in his abdomen. The water probably didn’t make any difference. Internal bleeding is the worse way to get injured, mainly because it’s impossible to treat for without surgery.

Honestly, him managing to hang on for WEEK with those injuries, is pretty much a god damned miracle already.

Hell, just look at Yuri’s flashback. It made no fucking sense at all. Maeda was just trying to make it as nasty as possible for the sake of itself. Seriously, the burglar guys expect a little girl to know where her parents keep their valuables and kill three of her siblings for no fucking reason. Who the fuck would do that in a country that has capital punishment? And in any civilized country that’s like 2000 years in jail.

The entirety of Angel Beats is contrived, man. The moment you expect anything of it or bother defending its stupidity, you lose the game.

ewok Said,

Well, drilling tunnels takes a lot of time and if earthquake was the primary disaster getting heavy equipement into place would take quite long, though Japan is famous for its rescue services efficiency so I understand the troubles with “suspension of disbelief”.
Having said that whole case for Yurippe front was fishy for me from the start, and episode when the singing girl vanished convinced me moving on into whatever afterlife awaits was right option. And Kanade wins “socially awkward anime char of the year” award.

Grimmer Said,

Considering organs hardly last 24 hours when conserved it’s just silly to consider donating them when you’re already a week stuck in some tunnel, you’re dying and no help is in sight…anyway, when they signed those tiny papers it crossed into the realm of comedy for me.

Lawl @ Kanade, she pulled off an Alucard.

EXM Said,

I can’t help but notice a bias in treatment between Tenshi segments and Otonashi segments. Otonashi’s story was pretty contrived, but his death was contrived to begin with, so I don’t think you’re being fair by using that as a basis to say it’s bad. Also, it was handled fairly well, I think. The donor card thing wasn’t that bad either. Besides, being an organ donor is a good thing, right?

doki doki Said,

this is a good ep and there were more otonashi/tachibana moments…
How will Otonashi contact Tenshi after this? How can anyone stop a Otonashi/Tenshi combo?
Anyway, Kanade has a 1/13 chance to regain her consciousness [12 Ranades and 1 Tenshi]

Eriker Said,

I may be stupid but I like this series…so WHAT if not everything makes sense? =D People in the real world do things that make no sense everyday. They kill for no reason, steal for fun, commit suicide out of boredom… And yeah to rescue people from a collapsed tunnel can take a week, you do not even know how much of the tunnel did crash down + if the celling is not stable they must proceed slowly or they cause just more damage.

Angel Beats has Kanade! It has Mabou Tofu! It has a piano parts in the opening! xD

NovaJinx – we have crimes like one man killing a family for like 150 bucks everyday ^_^;

akani Said,

Yeah, I also see a bias in how you treat Otonashi with how you treat Tenshi. I kind of feel that if/when they reveal Tenshi’s past, you’d praise it no matter how unrealistic it is.

Otonashi’s past was well done, actually. You don’t know what happened to the tunnel to make it collapse or how much of the tunnel collapsed. The workers need to locate exactly where they are and if there actually are survivers. And if there is a LOT of wreckage the rescue workers cannot just simply blow up the parts sealed off because that would send the roof down and KILL everyone. For that reason they need to go slowly. Also, we don’t know the situation in the outside world, whether a natural disaster like an earthquake has the rescue workers hands full at that point.

akani Said,

Oh, and also, Otonashi would have more feelings of regret because he couldn’t save anyone in that tunnel. He died before he could hear Igarashi say that he did and before the rescue workers made it through.

butterfli Said,

For the 9/11 disaster, there were people who survived under the rubble for 12 days so 7 days though slightly pushing the limits or “realism”, is actually realistic. And as someone had commented, if this was a disastrous earthquake, this subway wreck is just another wreckage in line waiting for rescuers.

As for the episode, I felt this was an awkward shift. The previous episode was packed full of action and comedy while this one was fully focused on drama and plot exploration. Maybe it’s because I just watched ef – a tale of melodies is one sitting for the first time the other day but I didn’t feel as emotional as everyone else is towards this episode. Heck, I think Maede did a better job with drama with Clannad. But of course, this series is far from over. In fact, the real plot only just begun.

x10000year Said,

rosmant Said,

regarding with how long it took the rescuers to rescue them, i found this comment in another blog:

“This is actually common for underground accidents. If you follow Hollywood style then you get rescued in about a few hours. However in RL (reference the mining incidents in the world), once the rescue team hits the area, a cordon and command post is set up. They will then look at the entire structure, try to pin point the accident ground 0 and evaluate from there.
Most cases they have no idea whether there are any survivors at all so they will have to try and check where are the survivors and they have to ensure anything they do will not bring down further collapses that will kill them.
Eg. Blowing up the rock seems like a nice idea until you realize that the rescue team can only blow up the rock near the entrances that were sealed and that the explosion may very will bring down the entire roof on top Otonashi.
If the entire area is destabilzed, only slow and very careful drilling is possible.”

Wow, I have no idea how you guys managed to say I am biased towards Tenshi over Otonashi when there was NOTHING yet about her past whatsoever. Don’t worry guys, I assure you, if Tenshi’s past is as cheesy as Otonashi’s I will definitely say the same thing too.

Maybe it was enough to tug at easily-moved hearts, but seriously Otonashi’s final moments was too damn cheesy for me and there’s a ton of holes too, making it really contrived to me. I would have much preferred if he died immediately in the accident, instead of him trying to be “Jesus Christ” in the tunnel. It makes more sense with what we have seen so far about people still having regrets about their lives anyways.

I really won’t argue about the whole trapped in tunnel for 7 days angle anymore, I just feel it’s still pretty unrealistic the rescuers never tried to make contact with inside. Obviously it’s impossible to excavate the debris in a week, but making a hole to send a probe in should be possible isn’t it? Not buying the earthquake angle though, not enough proof of it.

Anise Punter Said,

That was just a terrible episode. At this point I’m starting to wonder: is Jun Maeda actually associated with this, or is it a giant lab experiment to see how many people will just accept it and say “Oh, Maeda wrote it, it must be sad so now I’m sad.”

How many comments have used the word contrived here, like 15 of 20? Absolutely spot-on; it was labored, phony, all sorts of synonyms. It made me wish Working! was on sooner and I don’t particularly care about that show at all -_-

I feel pretty confident in saying that Tenshi’s past will in fact be just as cheesy if not lamer than Otonashi’s. Hopefully people don’t just eat it up.

Ice Block Said,

>a ton of holes too
It may be cheesy to some, but I don’t see any plot holes there. Care to point them out?

>making a hole to send a probe in should be possible isn’t it?
Nope. That’s not how rockslide-like incidents, like the collapsed tunnel here, work. If you set off any explosion without fully knowing the full extent of the incident, or how stable/unstable the system is, you risk causing more harm than good. That goes against the very ethics of rescue workers. You cannot also simply drill a hole in the middle of the whole thing (further destabilizing it), since it is entirely possible that the collapsed rubble is in itself part of what’s holding the entire tunnel up (not to mention you’d have no idea on how thick the rubble is).

>Not buying the earthquake angle though, not enough proof of it.
See episode 6. As we can see, the train is presumably traveling between cities/towns. It’s snowing, and then suddenly the tremors hit the train just before they enter the tunnel. What happened there can not be explained by a simple case of “derailing” since the train didn’t simply start flipping over or go off in some random direction. Apparently, there was a big earthquake. Further evidence of this is that the tunnel is collapsed on both sides. If it is an isolated incident of structural failure or simple derailing, then only one side of the tunnel should be caved in — the probability for both to cave in at the same time is pretty low.

Dude Said,

UH Said,

if there’s one thing I’ve learn about anime bloggers, is that they are either cynics or stuck up know-it-alls. not surprised to see these people being “disappointed” at all, though it makes you wonder why they don’t just drop it if a show continually challenges their sense of “realism”

Grimmer Said,

@UH: if a blogger shares his vision on anything, said vision is only valuable if it’s critical. Why the hell would anyone be interested in the opinion of someone who thinks ‘everything is fine’ or ‘it’s all great’ (or ‘it’s all shit’ for that matter)…
You’re supposed to point out the good, the bad and the ugly and that’s exactly what’s being done here…

The only true cynics and stuck up know-it-alls are those who give every freakin’ show they like a 100/100 rating and all those they didn’t a 0/100. Their opinion is clearly worthless.

Just because we have a difference of opinions doesn’t mean character assassination is due. This is why the Internet is full of losers. If you don’t like my opinion, fine, disagree with it, but jumping straight to “he’s a cynical, stuck-up know-it-all” just makes you look extremely stupid in retrospect.

If I dropped a show solely for one episode that I didn’t like, I wouldn’t be watching anime in the first place! At least when I start on a show, I will finish it before I make a judgement on it. What I hate the most are people who don’t even watch a show and then proceed to slam it without any basis for their arguments. So even if a show is shit, I will at least know WHY is it shit, rather than just saying it’s shit without giving a reason at all.

@Grimmer: Also thanks for the defense, it’s because of readers like you that comments are worth turning on in the first place and making blogging a fun thing to do.

babohtea Said,

The discussions over the show are more confusing than the anime itself -_-.

Well what I was going to suggest was that maybe he died before he knew that they were rescued? Idk, that MIGHT justify his regret. Or maybe they’ll directly acknowledge that he didn’t really have any regret and still made it to… school.

..

Maybe.

._.

zomglazerpewpewpew Said,

^ I think the Angel pointed out that the death of his SISTER and the Train Accident thing was not the cause of his REGRET that brought him to the SCHOOL because he did not disappear YET after realizing all THAT.

Nya~n Said,

hayate Said,

I thought the scene with Otonashi’s confusion at word ‘donor’ meant that he didn’t quite register what that english word was. He did drop out of school for a while and showed no direction or interest in going until he made the decision to be a doctor. It’s also completely possible that he was ignorant on the illness’ details, which seems likely with his attitude at the time.

It was just a flashback that made him think “Oh yeah, I haven’t signed as a donor yet. If I’m gonna die, might as well sign this just in case. There’s nothing else I can do right now anyway.” rather than suddenly realizing about his sister’s illness when he’s just spent all his time studying to go to med. school because he had regrets about her death.

The rescue and Otonashi’s non-regret really was.. kind of weird though. He looked confident that his organs would be put to good use, which implies that he stayed conscious long enough to hear/see the light from the rescue.. yet he didn’t mention the people he helped to survive at all. I guess he didn’t think of his role in that that as much, especially with the one dead guy adding to his regrets.

FlameStrike Said,

It’s good to get a discussion going. Debate and talk helps anime blogging be more interesting. I just don’t like it when one side just shuts down the others without any consideration though. Like you put up a theory or say your opinion and someone just guys “LOL NO YOU ARE WRONG KTHXBAI *ignore*”. That’s pretty annoying to me. Also I think both critical and non-critical comments both have value. People would get pretty annoyed if everyone just said the things you like sucked, but if everyone was all 10/10 omg, then it would be pretty boring. A balance is best, constructive debate over why things suck if they do, and praise if it’s praise worthy.

Ah well, as for the episode itself I enjoyed it a lot. There might have been a few contrived over dramatic issues, but it’s not entirely unbelievable, that’s just Jun Medea for you. The flash back did a good job showing Otonashi’s character and how his past affects his actions now. He didn’t do anything OOC in the context of what we’ve been shown about him. As for the tunnel thing, 7 days probably isn’t THAT unbelievable. There are too many unknowns that could have occurred for us to just right if off. There’s also evidence pointing to a possible Earthquake (How else would both sides of a subway tunnel be collapsed to THAT extent?). It’s not fair to just claim NOPE IT COULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED. It’s one thing if an extreme unreality occurred, but for something like this I think it’s well within the realm of possibility.

Ryouichi Said,

The problem with these arguments are that it’s heavily affected by point-of-view. As many people might say Otonashi’s death scene was lame and cheesy, many others say it was tear-jerking. Thus Kurogane is saying what he thinks of it based on his own perceptions.

What I did find off though was signing the cards. Yes, it’s symbolic in some way and manner I don’t care to identify, but like someone mentioned earlier, the organs probably would’ve been unusable by the time rescuers reached them, assuming they died.

>NovaJinx – we have crimes like one man killing a family for like 150 bucks everyday ^_^;

Bitch, please. 150 bucks is money, it’s profit. The burglars had absolutely _nothing_ to gain from killing three kids. You know, people who kill people for the fun of it don’t become burglars, they just become psychopath killers. Maeda just didn’t give three thoughts to it and it’s funny how all the faggots are still buying it.

Kaisos Said,

Thanks for the number of opinions and defense for Otonashi’s death moments on behalf of Maeda. I acknowledge I might have been harsh on it earlier, but I guess stuff like getting trapped in a collapsed tunnel for a week and toughing it out that long and managing to die right after signing a donor permission card and right before rescue comes is realistic enough, as well as the viability of the organs to be used.

That said, I still don’t like how it was conducted. It’s purely a matter of execution, not objectives. Sure Maeda wanted to make us feel really sad bittersweet-happy for Otonashi, but his execution didn’t really hit it off with me.

And @babohtea, the discussions aren’t that complicated. It’s just me not liking this episode and the fanboys leaping to the creator’s defense, disagreeing with my views. Pretty much like every discussion thread on every forum on the Internet.

Beruchi Said,

Nestor Said,

In case you haven’t notice, fiction loves contrived coincidences; it’s spices the story after all. Don’t worry though, I don’t really mind you ranting about it, since everybody has a different limit of disbelieve. Besides, the only sob-story that made me sad in this anime is Iwasawa’s…

I’m more surprised that not many comment on a fact that drives the series: Kanade wants everybody to end their regrets and go to a better place, but she failed at communicating so badly that high school purgatory ends up as a battlefield! Argh! If she weren’t such a cute girl I’d cry contrived stupidity! Err, sorry…

Then again, I haven’t read the side materials, so who knows? Maybe Yuri just got pissed of because her answers mean that she can’t spite god? How did they became enemies anyway?

Anyway, we got 4 episodes left, and assuming that the last episode will center around Otonashi, Kanade and Yuri, then the producers have 3 episodes to focus on at least 17 other people…As sad as it is to say, I’m smelling a trainwreck…

NanoNano Said,

Well it would have been better if this had been the direction since episode 4 or ealier most of the plot was pointless and useless, unless they somehow make this series into a 24 ep series or something.

Hope it won’t be rushed and ruined…

ironysteeth Said,

I always hadda feeling Otonashi was going to side with the angel. Episode one he basically said he’d go along with them for now. Well, the time IS now. Now that he understands that disappearing isnt an end to an existance, but a chance to start another (AND NOT AS A WATER FLEA). 7 days inna wrecked underground train site? sure I can see where that might be a bit of a stretch, but tragdies can be absurd as well. Lotta things to criticize this episode about, but I liked it.